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If this open, unscripted discussion with the developers is anything to go by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByqoWsnz-I&hd=1

GW2 is set for huge e-sport success.

They are very clear that they are not rushing it, but the announced balance changes, the pacing of changes, the way they are approaching their PVP game is fantastic.

I also LOVED the fact that this guy says clearly that some noobs just need to L2P. That kind of frankness only comes from someone who plays the game extensively himself, a developer who is also a competitive player = awesome.

No bullcrap, no marketing spin, just a skilled PVP developer with opinions and ideas who is open about discussing with the players.

You can tell this guy really cares about balance and competitive gaming above all, and that's exactly what you want.

Let's face it, PVP in other MMOs like SWTOR, WoW, Aion, AOC, etc is a joke. No one takes it seriously, and no MMO has e-sport PVP. It's too unbalanced.

GW2 has a very good chance at it because it's already the most balanced MMO, and about to become even more balanced in every little detail.

I think that with the mindset displayed in the video, they might have the biggest esport game of 2013.

Anyway, just watch it in full and make up your own mind.

Blizzard just had their WoW Arena World Championships a couple of weeks ago. It had Arena teams from all over the world going head to head for an entire weekend. Not sure where you're getting your facts from.

Thats generally what happens when you fund your own tournaments. It does not mean WoW Arena is an e-sport. This is a Blizzard sponsored tournament, this isn't MLG or anything like that. Infact...weren't they kicked out of the MLG? Lol. WoW does not and will not support E-Sports. A developer even said recently that the goal with the game's pvp balance is focused around skilll AND gear. This is not something that a good E-sport has. A good E-Sport would be based on skill alone. (Balance aside, of coarse)

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If this open, unscripted discussion with the developers is anything to go by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByqoWsnz-I&hd=1

GW2 is set for huge e-sport success.

They are very clear that they are not rushing it, but the announced balance changes, the pacing of changes, the way they are approaching their PVP game is fantastic.

I also LOVED the fact that this guy says clearly that some noobs just need to L2P. That kind of frankness only comes from someone who plays the game extensively himself, a developer who is also a competitive player = awesome.

No bullcrap, no marketing spin, just a skilled PVP developer with opinions and ideas who is open about discussing with the players.

You can tell this guy really cares about balance and competitive gaming above all, and that's exactly what you want.

Let's face it, PVP in other MMOs like SWTOR, WoW, Aion, AOC, etc is a joke. No one takes it seriously, and no MMO has e-sport PVP. It's too unbalanced.

GW2 has a very good chance at it because it's already the most balanced MMO, and about to become even more balanced in every little detail.

I think that with the mindset displayed in the video, they might have the biggest esport game of 2013.

Anyway, just watch it in full and make up your own mind.

Blizzard just had their WoW Arena World Championships a couple of weeks ago. It had Arena teams from all over the world going head to head for an entire weekend. Not sure where you're getting your facts from.

Thats generally what happens when you fund your own tournaments. It does not mean WoW Arena is an e-sport. This is a Blizzard sponsored tournament, this isn't MLG or anything like that. Infact...weren't they kicked out of the MLG? Lol. WoW does not and will not support E-Sports. A developer even said recently that the goal with the game's pvp balance is focused around skilll AND gear. This is not something that a good E-sport has. A good E-Sport would be based on skill alone. (Balance aside, of coarse)

WoW has the arena tournament. The arena tournament is the method used to determine the best teams in each region. This is a different system then what MLG and ESL used when picking teams as they would mostly just look at ratings from the WoW's live server.

The arena tournament is similar to GW2's heart of the Mist where players have access to all gear available ingame along with pets. The only exception is if Blizzard removes certain pve itemsdue to them being too powerful in a pvp setting. Gear imbalances have only been an issue to the casual pvper playing on live - and even then they can make up the difference after a few weeks of honor and conquest grinding.

But regardless, what really determines a game's e-sport viability is how popular it is. GW2's SPvP scene is sinking. Just read the official forums and see the complaints from the top players and teams. Sure, they will act polite infront of the developers, but they voice their complaints freely on the forums and on their streams.

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Let's face it, PVP in other MMOs like SWTOR, WoW, Aion, AOC, etc is a joke. No one takes it seriously, and no MMO has e-sport PVP. It's too unbalanced.

Blizzard just had their WoW Arena World Championships a couple of weeks ago. It had Arena teams from all over the world going head to head for an entire weekend. Not sure where you're getting your facts from.

And thats just for the Ranger profession. All professions have bugs to their basic mechanics that have been reported on the forums. GW2 has a looooong way to go before its E-sport viable. Even then, I doubt it has a large enough dedicated pvp community interested in watching and supporting it.

Yeah... provide the text saying "Full' on a value that can be set to anything you want really shows the game is doing 'well'. I doubt its failing horribly but when you put pictures up showing a game is doing good showing population listed by text that can be determined anyway the game design wants, you show you have no clue at all about what your talking about.

Heck, my game right now is full. I'd list at full right now. I'm only playing a single player game but heck I consider 1 player to be full so thats what it will be!

No, I doubt GW2 is going through a mass extinction but no, posting stupid picture like that as 'proof' it isn't is just as stupid.

Interesting.. If I ever create a MMO, I'll set my server lists all to "full" by default without giving any numbers.

People seem to believe a lot when it's presented in list form ;)

Full server in GW2 mean nothing, my server is full 24/7, but you can find less than 10 players in the myst and just 4 or 5 Spvp games running.

It's pretty easy to catch a lie..spvp is shared across all servers. There is always, except for when they reset the servers, way more than 4 or 5 games running.

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I cast at twitch and that's their big thing - turning games into something you watch repetitively and they do call themselves an e-sport outlet.

The GW2 casts first week were over 20k viewers, the game was new so it was expected.

As time passed some of the only casters were the tournaments, well, let me rephrase that, the tournaments had the most amount of viewers. Joe Blow leveling to 80 isn't as exciting as "I'm leetoh cheetoh, watch me pwnzors" where you would join to laugh at their lack of skill in their inpenetrable gear of confidence or try to glean information about their tactics because they were valid.

Today, just a few months into the game, the casts have dramatically reduced numbers of viewers and casters. Now, daily there are less than 200 viewers sometimes for all types of gameplay, spread between 10-20 casts.

For reference, some of the big e-sport folks bring in from 5k-20k+ viewers on twitch. The embedded casts do count too so someone can watch twitch vids from the person's website if they are a pro.

From what they have now, they def. are not competing in e-sport on twitch. I got some viewers casting wvw but honestly, I got more viewers when I cast me playing a browser version of Tetris. So, their wvw isn't exciting to watch either.

Edit: Ok, I watched the vid, basically they said - it's coming - we are working on things. My response, that is a constant and I think it was stated first, the only constant is change so nothing of gravitas there. They also said that a month before I bought the game on their twitch casts but haven't done it yet. Now he is talking about a timeline over a year along with the PVE gear they are introducing over a year. It doesn't sound like they are anymore focused on e-sport than they are fractal-sport. Not sure why the OP sees so much inference that they might take off more just because of the video.

There was a bit o the brown-nosing too that I didn't find attractive from the person telling them "you are our best players" all the time until that "best player" agreed saying - yes, "listen to us and just ask us what needs to change because we play the game 8hrs a day so we know". At one point the guy stopped them on that vision and told them that they must balance for the noobs (his words) too on the forums. It shows that they will flatter but not deliver in a way that can be quantified although I suppose the maker of this video didn't choose to invite any "noobs" to see what they thought of being called noobs so that we could have seen both angles. Guess noob support is forum based only and the "best players" get to have video conferences. Suppose you all know what category you fit into if all you can offer is forum posts and don't get those video chats so learn your place in future when you make suggestions is what you can take from that. lol

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Let's face it, PVP in other MMOs like SWTOR, WoW, Aion, AOC, etc is a joke. No one takes it seriously, and no MMO has e-sport PVP. It's too unbalanced.

Blizzard just had their WoW Arena World Championships a couple of weeks ago. It had Arena teams from all over the world going head to head for an entire weekend. Not sure where you're getting your facts from.

Yeah turns out a whole lot of people take it very seriously. In fact i doubt GW2 will ever have a competition that rivals Battlenet.

ArenA teams in WOW are ranked and face off in finals hosted around the world with the winning team taking over 125k grand prize. Jeez mmo 101

Sorry but anyone who thinks WoW is even capable of being e-sport viable is a joke.

E-sport players are professionals and laugh at WoW players like Azael and Cdew, who are more $1 e-beggars on twitch than they are e-sports pros.

You would know this if you had any clue of what real e-sports is.

Arena isn't it, it's ridiculously unbalanced (think of the class balance jerks on warriors in wotlk, cata and mop), the meta is constantly swinging 180 degrees and arena itself an old boring pillar-humping formula that no one cares about outside of WoW no-lifers.

On top of that, you need to grind to level XX and grind gear to even play, which makes the competitive pool tiny compared to real esports where skill is the determining factor, not subscription fees, gear-grinding and time spent. The top of ladders in wow are infested with win-traders and exploiters, and even legit players have to deal with massive class balance swings every few months. It's a joke.

GW2 is not there yet on e-sports. It needs more viewers on twitch, it needs competitive ladders, spectator mode, etc. We all know this.

But because balance is a priority and GW2 is already the most balanced MMO out there (every class is viable in top end tPVP, yes even rangers, and its overall meta puts games like SWTOR and WoW to shame) it has a great chance to get there, and the video shows the correct attitude and priorities in careful balancing and esports feature additions to get there.

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If you are watching other people playing games instead of playing them yourselves you are doing it wrong.

Arrogant, Condescending, Dismissive, Elitist, "Meany", you speak as if these are bad things?Still currently "subscribed" to EVE, and only EVE!!!"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

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Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by IPolygonActions first, talk later. GW1 started with more pvp features (ladder, matchmaking) than GW2 and was developed by a much smaller team. Needless to say, strategy is strong in the prequel, in the sequel not so much. That many classes are bugged and outclassed by others tells a lot about how important spvp actually is. In addtion to that, pvp being improved 5 months after release is bad considering their "when it's done" excuse. The game is far from done.

There is actually a ton of strategy in GW2, just not in randoms. Which was the same case in GW1.

Like what? I see tons of tactics, but no strategy whatsoever in this pvp.

Yeah... provide the text saying "Full' on a value that can be set to anything you want really shows the game is doing 'well'. I doubt its failing horribly but when you put pictures up showing a game is doing good showing population listed by text that can be determined anyway the game design wants, you show you have no clue at all about what your talking about.

Heck, my game right now is full. I'd list at full right now. I'm only playing a single player game but heck I consider 1 player to be full so thats what it will be!

No, I doubt GW2 is going through a mass extinction but no, posting stupid picture like that as 'proof' it isn't is just as stupid.

Interesting.. If I ever create a MMO, I'll set my server lists all to "full" by default without giving any numbers.

People seem to believe a lot when it's presented in list form ;)

Full server in GW2 mean nothing, my server is full 24/7, but you can find less than 10 players in the myst and just 4 or 5 Spvp games running.

It's pretty easy to catch a lie..spvp is shared across all servers. There is always, except for when they reset the servers, way more than 4 or 5 games running.

[mod edit]

Truth is, GW2 sPVP is a game of skill and strategy, and there is plenty of both, more than in any other MMO.

It's just that a lot of MMO players are stuck in the outdated, simple and easy to execute CCchain->burst mentality that makes WoW PVP a joke of constant class balance changes favouring whatever FOTM cc+burst comp works best that month.

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Originally posted by KyleranIf you are watching other people playing games instead of playing them yourselves you are doing it wrong.

It's the same with watching sports? Hence the term e-sports? O_o

[mod edit]

Well now that you mention it, yes, but at least with a real sport it's understandable why it might be inconvenient to go out to the field (if not outright dangerous on some cases) so you need to live vicariously to participate. But with gaming you can pretty much always log in and play with little inconvenience our risk to your health. No, watching others play games is just plain wrong.

Arrogant, Condescending, Dismissive, Elitist, "Meany", you speak as if these are bad things?Still currently "subscribed" to EVE, and only EVE!!!"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon

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Originally posted by KyleranIf you are watching other people playing games instead of playing them yourselves you are doing it wrong.

It's the same with watching sports? Hence the term e-sports? O_o

[mod edit]

Well now that you mention it, yes, but at least with a real sport it's understandable why it might be inconvenient to go out to the field (if not outright dangerous on some cases) so you need to live vicariously to participate. But with gaming you can pretty much always log in and play with little inconvenience our risk to your health. No, watching others play games is just plain wrong.

You're quite behind the times.

Just like sports, you can play games yourself.

Just like when you get good at sports (let's use the example of football) you get curious: what about the very best in the world at football? How do they play? What tactics do their team use? What can I learn from them? What about different teams, different players? What about my city's team, my national team, my college's team?

And thus people watch sports. And people watch e-sports, it's growing and becoming more mainstream.

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Originally posted by KyleranIf you are watching other people playing games instead of playing them yourselves you are doing it wrong.

It's the same with watching sports? Hence the term e-sports? O_o

[mod edit]

Well now that you mention it, yes, but at least with a real sport it's understandable why it might be inconvenient to go out to the field (if not outright dangerous on some cases) so you need to live vicariously to participate. But with gaming you can pretty much always log in and play with little inconvenience our risk to your health. No, watching others play games is just plain wrong.

You're quite behind the times.

Just like sports, you can play games yourself.

Just like when you get good at sports (let's use the example of football) you get curious: what about the very best in the world at football? How do they play? What tactics do their team use? What can I learn from them? What about different teams, different players? What about my city's team, my national team, my college's team?

And thus people watch sports. And people watch e-sports, it's growing and becoming more mainstream.

This exactly. When I'm watching SC2 and I see a brilliant play I want to try it out on my own (after the matches are done). And it's very cool to watch them execute stuff I will never be able to do :D

"We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. KennedyAnd for MMORPGs ever so true...

Yeah... provide the text saying "Full' on a value that can be set to anything you want really shows the game is doing 'well'. I doubt its failing horribly but when you put pictures up showing a game is doing good showing population listed by text that can be determined anyway the game design wants, you show you have no clue at all about what your talking about.

Heck, my game right now is full. I'd list at full right now. I'm only playing a single player game but heck I consider 1 player to be full so thats what it will be!

No, I doubt GW2 is going through a mass extinction but no, posting stupid picture like that as 'proof' it isn't is just as stupid.

Interesting.. If I ever create a MMO, I'll set my server lists all to "full" by default without giving any numbers.

People seem to believe a lot when it's presented in list form ;)

If people cheat, they at least set the population to "high", not full. Full means you cant get your friends into playing on your server which isnt great exactly.

Your MMO would have zero players since noone could create any characters on any server....

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If GW2 want to become the big E-sport they need to add more maps (with some other options to win, like capture the flag and so on) and more importantly, guild Vs guild PvP.

Right now in current shape I dont see the game becomming the next big E-sport.

And I actually play GW2s PvP, while it is fun I miss the guild Vs guild battles from the first game, they were loads of fun.

Tbh I think Anet should look at some maps in SWTOR and RIFT. Their PvP is not all that good (standard MMO PvP stuff), but their map design is quite cool and they have a lot of variety. SWTOR Hutball and Voidstar give really cool mechanics with a bigger strategy than just node control.

"We need men who can dream of things that never were." - John F. KennedyAnd for MMORPGs ever so true...